Darkest Night
by Wynsome Rose
Summary: There's more than one secret in the world, but some secrets are more potent than others. One such secret is that of witches, a silent number in the magical equation, known only by the Volturi, and a vampiric doctor. Summary inside. Chapter Two!
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** There's more than one secret in the world, but some secrets are more potent than others. One such secret is that of the witches, a silent number in the magical equation, known only by the Volturi and a certain vampire doctor. Channer Whitney is a young witch, not yet at the Time of Choosing. She heads off to college in Portland, where she plans to live in the witch community till she turns twenty-five. Portland is a rat's nest of problems, with wild vampire covens running loose in the inner city, covens of teenage witches meeting in the woods and meddling with the affairs of those who shouldn't know about them, and, on the fringes, a bizarre communion of vampires and shapeshifters. Throw the original Oracle of Delphi into the mix, and things are going to get weird. Portland is going to blow, one way or another, and only a berserker will be able to change the outcome.

I thought it would be interesting to throw in another magical 'race' in the Twilight world, and the plot wrote itself from there.  
I don't own Twilight, or any of it's characters or concepts.  
I partially own Sam the vampire, who will appear around chapter four. The first three chapters are pretty much introductions for the main-ish characters and attempts at explaining the witches.  
I do own Channer, her family, and the conception of witches in this world.  
Real plot should start in chapter six, and the chapters will get longer.  
Thank you.  
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_Dallas/Fort Worth, TX_

Channer swung her backpack onto one shoulder. "Mama, don't let the boys get too rowdy. If I find they've wrecked my room, I'll commit painful murder on the four of them." She kissed her mother's cheek gently, the aged skin creasing slightly beneath her lips. It wasn't that her mother was truly old, it was that she had seen too much and lived through too much in her youth, before she hit twenty-five and chose to settle down like a normal woman. "Tell Papa, when he gets back from wherever he's at, that I won't miss his lectures, just him."

She turned to her four brothers, the twins and her older brother and youngest brother. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do- on second thought, don't do anything that my kitten wouldn't do."

"Does that mean no homework?" Rick, one of the twins, asked, hopeful.

She cuffed him. "Don't make me start a wrestling match _again_," she grumbled.

Jackson, the other twin, laughed and hugged his sister tight. "God bless," he whispered in her ear. He always made people feel better. Always.

Lawrence, her older brother, rolled his eyes. "Don't go for pretty boys," he advised, "They wouldn't last once you show off who you are."

"That's the last thing I intend to do," she snapped.

"Just remember it, Channy."

The youngest, hopeful, seven-year-old Maximillian III, who was too scrawny for his name, wrapped his arms around her waist. "Send me a pony from Oregon," he begged.

"They don't have ponies in Oregon, and Mama's already told you there's going to be one come Christmas," Channer said, fighting the urge to blush. She kissed Max's forehead and detached him from her waist, then walked into the security check line, head held high. Her red-gold hair, in a ponytail, swung begind her. Her tall, slim form was slow in disappearing, since she towered above quite a bit of the populace. At six feet even, she was distinctive, and with the former glory of her mother's looks, she was, while not beautiful, pretty at least.

Only one security guard stopped her, but it was only to ask what her number was.

She laughed. "I don't know yet. Going to college."

He sighed in disappointment, but let her move on.

On the plane, Channer curled up in her seat and pulled out her hasty graduation gift from her mother. It was entitled _Witching for Women, and Why Covens Are Impractical_. Channer, like the rest of her family, had been born with magic. She could tell when a being was magical, and she could do small charms to find stuff or to keep things from getting lost. Like every witch, she also had a special power that classed her into one of the five categories of magician. She was the rarest kind, like her grandmother, and her great-great-grandmother had been: a warrior-witch. Warrior-witches didn't so much do magic when they used their power, as they did change. They went berserk when they lost their temper, and became extremely strong and swift. Other witches called it amazing, but the warrior-witches called it losing control. Channer had only lost it so fully once, and it had been while she was being stalked by a vampire.

Vampires were no secret to witches, but witches were a secret to vampires. Channer, with the power fueled by her anger, and the knowledge every witch learned young that vampires were destroyed by fire, killed the two vampires who had been tracking her. She'd been both horrified and proud, and had immediately began to control her emotions till she was as good at holding them in as a hardened poker player.

Channer's brothers and father were witches as well, and her mother had given her oracular powers up at twenty-five, when every witch had to choose to live into immortality or to live as a human, without their power. Most gave their power up. Channer's father had not. He was an older witch, and had lived for two-hundred years before he met his wife. He was an elemental witch, who could manipulate the elements. He, like every witch who chose immortality, had limited amounts of oracular power, destruction power, healing power, and some of the warrior's strength and speed. His elemental power was strengthened by immortality, and instead of the limited control over mere candle flames, pebbles, glasses of water, and tiny puffs of air, he could use the elements as other magical creatures used their natural weapons.

Channer's brothers each had their own powers. Jackson was a healer, his twin a destroyer (they always came as twins), Max was an elemental like their father, and Lawrence was an oracle who had already chosen. He had chosen their father's path of immortality on his twenty-fifth birthday. His oracular powers were under far better control than they had been as a child and teenager. Instead of being half-insane with the visions that pressed upon him, he could simply ignore the visions. He had been homeschooled all his life, because they were afraid of having him sent to an asylum of some sort. Channer had grown up helping her brother and being his link to the outside world. She was seven years younger. The twins were seven years younger than she, and little Max was four years younger than they were. Their parents hadn't planned for such a thorough gap between all of their children, it had just happened that way.

She realized she wasn't really seeing the pages of the book, and sighed. She'd already read it three times anyhow. Covens gave you bad habits and made you think magic was too special to use for ordinary things. That magic shouldn't be used to help others, just to entertain oneself. That only an idiot would ever consider actually giving his or her power up.

Frankly, Channer wouldn't have joined a coven anyhow, not once she learned that most of them met in the nude. She wouldn't call herself a prude, but she really wasn't interested in dancing naked with a bunch of other random people, no matter how interesting and compelling she thought anatomy was.

She put her book back in her backpack, and fell asleep before the plane ever took off.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for taking this long to post the second chapter! I'm afraid I got caught up in highschool, and I know there's at least one or two people who care to read this. Some reiteration of facts from the last chapter, you meet some of the girls who'll be main characters. Shay, especially, will be around Channer a lot.

Fun facts about Channer: Her birthday is October 17th, she learned wrestling from her younger brothers, and she has - at best - negligible interest in romance.

The lat bit means, don't expect her to have a huge all-encompassing interest in any of the guys. She'll still have a life whenever she gets interested in anyone. Probably not vampires, as she has trouble keeping control around them.

Disclaimed: I'm not Stephanie Meyer, I do not own Twilight or any of the concepts expressed within it. I do own Channer, the lovely girls in this chapter, and this particular conception of witches.

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I woke with a jolt just before the plane touched down. It wasn't the plane, it was the feeling out of this place. It felt like a big viper's nest of vampires and shape-shifters (I think, though the only shape-shifter I ever met was almost dead, so I don't know precisely). There were many witches there too. Portland didn't seem boring anymore, that's for sure.

I had lined up a job before I ever accepted the admission from my college. I had money saved up from working the farms around my little small-town, but I needed a job up here in Oregon for while I was in college. There hadn't been any of the jobs I was used to working, obviously. Oregonians aren't as interested in farming as Texans, I guess. So it took me awhile to find something I could do that wouldn't interfere with going to school. I'd finally lighted on helping this old witch around her house. She wasn't physically old, but she was a friend of my mama's. She was fifty-five too, but she looked twenty-five like my father and brother. She was demanding, I'd discovered, but she paid well. She should, because boy was the lady rich. Brain surgeon, anyone? She paid me enough to afford things I needed, as long as I looked after her house's well-being. I got room and board. It was a good deal. Not to mention, I'd have help. She had four other young witches living with her, but she hadn't told me anything about them.

I had directions from her to get to the house, and she'd mailed me a key to her place. I took the way on foot, because walking is the best way to figure out what a city's like. I'd walked through New Orleans when my parents took us there for Mardi Gras, my fifteenth birthday. I'd walked through Fort Worth and Dallas both. I wasn't an aimless walker, like some people. I had a purpose at all times, though that purpose wasn't necessarily to get to any specific place. This time it was, but I knew I'd have plenty of chance to manage my true walking. I was going to be living here for four years, after all. Maybe longer.

No one bothered me, though I could sense power in many of the people who passed. It's probably a good thing witches are the only magical beings who can sense power, or we'd have been destroyed a long time ago. Vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves, the ones that knew of us, hated witches. Because we were uncanny, and we never gave up our original nature without doing so willingly. I could kind of understand that. I mean, who wants to drink blood and burn in the sunlight? Yuck. My blood smells terrible, although I guess it might smell better when it isn't from your period, or if your main food source is blood. I guess it might be interesting then.

I primarily felt vampires in this city, and I was advanced enough in my studies to discern where each of their covens were (we stole the word from them), and a tiny bit about them from the currents of power. Most of them seemed to be locked into fighting, like human gangs in the city were reported to. It seemed only fitting that each coven shared the same territory with a gang. Why not have all the violence in one area, after all? Humans in the day, vampires in the night. The shapeshifters seemed to be on the fringes, nearer to the cliffs, along with one coven of vampires. They didn't feel right, not like a true vampire, but interesting as that might be, there were other wrong feelings emanating all over now.

My eyes flicked around, but I tried to hide any sign of nervousness. It felt like someone was following me, but it was hard to tell each current of power from another, because I was tired, and because there were so many. I did, at least, seem to be walking into the biggest area of witch power I'd ever felt. It curled all around the housing area my new employer lived in, keeping the other creatures out. I breathed easier as the overwhelming sense of others faded. Fort Worth, with a vampire population even bigger than this, hadn't been this overwhelming. I rubbed my neck, almost stumbling now as I made my way in the direction of the house.

When I reached it, I had trouble believing the woman was a brain surgeon. Most brain surgeons have enormous and ugly mansions, but Mrs. Lissim had a small sandstone cottage with three bungalows behind it, connected all together by walkways.

I used my key to open the door. I hadn't needed to worry about luggage, as Mama and I had sent everything but my backpack ahead of me. I was greeted by the smell of cookies baking, and the sounds of four girls talking.

"When do you suppose she'll get here?" one was saying as I walked in. "I can't sense a dratted thing through the spellnet!"

"Spellnet?" I asked.

They all turned around to look at me. The speaker was a beautiful girl around my age, very obviously Native American. Her high cheekbones and long, straight black hair were beautiful, her dark skin exotic. She was short and slightly plump, but that only enhanced her looks. If I was plump, I'd look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Two of the girls were identical twins, right down to the birthmark on their cheeks, left for the one on the right, right for the one on the left. Both of them had dyed their hair bright blue. The fourth girl was paler than I was, with loose golden-brown hair twining every whichway, and a pair of purple glasses stuck on her forehead. She was also ridiculously short, and had on what appeared to be enormous heels. She was the first to shrug, and she looked down at her thick books.

"Justice, you can tell her," she told the Native girl. "I've still got to finish my paper." She looked up at me. "I'm working on another doctorate, so I've got a lot of work left." She looked about the table, and frowned. "I set my glasses down just a minute ago, where could they have gone?"

Justice sighed. "Shay, try your forehead," she said, patient.

Shay groped upwards with her hand and blinked. "Oh, so I didn't take them off. Thanks."

Justice turned to me. "Shay is always losing stuff while still wearing it. She's pretty absent-minded, and has been known to walk into walls. I'm Justice Lissom, Mrs. Lissom's step-daughter."

"Peace and Patience Gentry," one of the twins said. "I'm Peace, she's Patience. Our parents are Amish, but we kind of hated it." She shrugged. This was the girl with the left cheek birthmark.

"Anyhow, the spellnet is used to protect us witches. Anyone not a witch who tries to come in here decides not to. We can't sense them, we're safe here, and they don't really like this area," Patience explained, smiling at me. "Mrs. Lissom didn't tell us what your name was."

I grinned. "Channer Whitney," I said, taking a seat.

"So what type are you?" Peace asked. "Pay and I are healer-destroyer. I'm the destroyer, ironically. Shay's our token adult oracle, and Justice is the elemental."

"I can be your token warrior," I yawned. "That's what I am at home, just with four brothers."

They'd gone quiet.

"Warrior?" Justice asked. "You don't seem like one. Don't you all have red eyes and kill people all the time?"

"It's only happened once, and only to some stalkerpires," I said, and covered a yawn. "It's how we figured out what I actually was. It skips a generation on my mama's side." Another yawn.

"Four brothers?" Peace asked.

"Yup, a set of twins, my big brother the badass oracle, and the little elemental monster," I said, between yawns.

Justice shook her head. "You've got the third bungalow," she said. "Peace and Patience have the middle one - ignore any sounds of breaking glass or explosions unless you see fire, since they're chem majors - Shay has the first, and I live in the house. You help us with the chores. Your stuff is already in the bungalow." She paused. "Oh! Only house rule is that you better not bring boys here, unless they're witches. Mind, our boys prefer the term 'warlock' or 'wizard'. I like witch though, it keeps their ego down."

I laughed, and managed to make my way to my new little bungalow, where I fell into a blessed, deep, uninterrupted sleep.

For the next sixty hours.


End file.
